Royal Canin Instinctive is the everyday complete wet food in this range — thin slices in gravy for healthy adult cats with no particular condition to manage. Its whole design rests on one question: what would a cat choose, if it could?

What instinctively preferred actually means

Given free choice between foods, cats do not pick at random. They settle on a fairly consistent ratio of energy drawn from protein, fat and carbohydrate — and they will adjust what they eat across several foods to arrive at it. Royal Canin call this the macro nutrient profile, and they formulate this recipe to match it.

The practical difference is not first-bite appeal, which any strong aroma can buy. It is whether a cat is still eating the same food willingly in month six. That is where most foods lose a fussy cat, and it is the problem this one is built around.

• ✓Matched to feline preference. Built to the protein, fat and carbohydrate ratio cats select for themselves.
• ✓Supports a healthy urinary system. Formulated with bladder health in mind, helped along by the moisture wet food carries.
• ✓Helps maintain ideal weight. Fat held at a level that supplies energy without encouraging gain.
• ✓Thin slices in gravy. Easy eating, and the gravy carries the aroma that gets a cat to the bowl.
• ✓Also made as jelly and loaf. If your cat rejects one texture, the same nutrition exists in another.

Which gravy pouch is right?

Four of these pouches look much the same on the shelf. The difference is who they are for:

Instinctive is the default. If your cat has been neutered, the Sterilised version is the better fit for the same money — that change to metabolism is worth feeding for.

Feeding it